


Far is My Hive

by Red



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Bad Sea Shanty Composing On My Part, Community: homesmut, Cultural Appropriation, Fishertrolls, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 09:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for a prompt asking for a story exploring cultural appropriation in a humans-dominate-trolls sort of dystopia. </p>
<p>Kankri isn't getting any younger, serving up seatroll cuisine for curious humans (or trollkin, he thinks, in his kinder moments); Cronus is out to sea, hoping for a quick buck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Monday through Thursday, you're cooking troll food in your nutritionblock. It is somewhat claustrophobic, and the work is perhaps not what you had dreamed of whilst young.

However, you must admit that food is the great equalizer. Grubloaf, fried grubsteak, rolled grubfry--serving plateau after serving plateau, you make pounds of traditional Alternian fare to sell at an affordable rate to fellow laborers. Across the spectrum, such dishes are quite popular, and it only takes one or two speeches to ensure that the food is to be shared equally amongst all trolls. 

Today, however, your nutritionblock is empty. 

It's Saturday, and you're cooped up behind the prep bar of the highly problematically-named Condy's; all weekend, you are concentrating on filleting fish, on ignoring the few humans who trickle in to watch. 

"How authentic," you'll hear, or sometimes, "what a well-mannered troll." 

Neither is exactly true. Your knife runs smooth through cool flesh. 

At your last human-restaurant job, you were dismissed for "speaking out of hand to the management." You have learned to hold your tongue around patrons and staff both, even concerning simple manners such as the authenticity of a land troll preparing fish in a method that would not even be practiced by seadwellers. 

Some sweeps back, you were taught the basics of sea troll cuisine. The owner of Condy's was not, you discovered, excessively impressed to have you demonstrate. You will prepare it in the method the clientele finds palatable, you were told, and the clientele is not common fishertrolls. 

You bite your lip, concentrating on your work. You wonder what this fish is. Bream, you think. Perhaps cod. As long as you may spend your weekends deboning seacreatures--

_Always leave the spine intact, yeah? Don't want to disrupt that delicacy of bones and nerves, right?_

\--you shall never learn your fish. 

For the first few hours, you work quietly and alone, with only the occasional human stopping by to watch you closely or address you directly. You suppose it would be unfair to deny them the opportunity to speak to an authentic troll. It is rare, after all, that you are seen close-up in polite human society. 

Perhaps, you think--not for the first time--you should think of yourself as an ambassador for the species. Besides, you're lucky to have this work, you remind yourself. You’re short and small-horned, an old enough warmblood that even with a knife, you'd never be mistaken as a threat. 

Halfway through the night, that's when the regulars truly start to come by. It isn't all that long before a pair of younger human females sit at the bar. 

"Hello," one says to you, in a reasonably passable Northeast Alternian dialect. "Kankri, how's the grubloaf?" 

You glance up from your work. You don't like socializing excessively, as the floor manager does not care to pay you for talking, but this human is rather faithful in her patronage. 

"Hello," you return in the same dialect. Humans tend to prefer it as the "true" troll language. Of course, such is as problematic as declaring English the language of all humans, but from the complaints of your coworkers some humans are keen on perpetuating that myth, as well. "Nathalie, I trust you're well?" 

She smiles, but shakes her head, as if somewhat exasperated. Human gestures are rather complicated. "Kankri, I told you! Call me Natlie," she insists. 

Of course, the six-letter name. Quite essential to trollkin. "I apologize, I didn't mean to invalidate--"

"Oh, no, it's fine!" she interrupts. She's blushing, and the human at her side squeezes her arm. You see them lean in to whisper to one another, and you refrain from berating yourself. You always talk far too much, and you know it never results in anything constructive with humans; at the most, they are charmed and surprised by your grasp of the English language. 

"--so cute," you hear from one of them. You reach over for another fish. 

"Really, it's just a nickname. It's okay," Nathalie says. "But really, how's the grubloaf?"

She leans over to her friend before you answer, telling her--no, really, he actually cooks loafs with grubs, how cool is that--and you smile at them. It is kind of them to ask. 

"Quite well, thank you. The grubfry is more popular this time of sweep, of course." They look somewhat nonplussed, so you are swift to keep speaking. Humans, you have found, are rarely fond of the particulars of troll cuisine. "But, Natlie, I have not been introduced to your friend." 

With one arm, she reaches over to pull her friend close. 

"This is Kate," she says. You imagine it is spelled with six letters. "I've been dying to introduce you to her!" 

"Hello, Kate, I'm Kankri. It is my pleasure," you say, in careful, slow Alternian. The two of them beam. 

"Hi," she replies in English. "Can you tell me how to pronounce it right? I'm her moirail." 

You slice the bones from another fish. The vertebrae are already severed from the head and tail, the nerves are already disrupted. 

"Moirail," you pronounce, slowly. And, because you're a well-mannered troll, you elaborate. "Your diamond." 

It is easier for humans to say. They both repeat it, smiling, and you tell them it's perfect. 

And, truthfully, who are you to pass judgment? Who is to say humans cannot experience pale romance, or that these two girls are even--deep down in their bloodpushers--not trolls themselves?

The night goes by slowly. You work methodically, swift strokes of the knife as you speak to the collection of humans who sit at the bar, who are--week after week--intrigued with you. Or, more accurately, the _concept_ of you.

But the words of Nathalie and Kate, they continue to replay in your mind as the hours wear by. 

They do not trouble you, however. Of course not. 

Why should they?

After your shift, it’s always the same routine. You pull off your apron. You hang it neatly in the breakroom. Tonight, two of the human waiters are back there, gossiping. One waves you over to urge a ten into your hand--"for dealing with the troll groupies," she says--before you can collect your stuff. 

Coat and scarf and hat, you're soon covered enough to stay warm and to avoid the closer scrutiny of the police. 

You bid your coworkers goodnight. They are kind, truly. Most of the clients are kind, and there's no reason at all for it to trouble you that two humans would mention moiraliegance. 

Strictly speaking, it's not illegal to be out at this hour, but you still hurry back to your hive as swift as your joints will allow. 

The stars are dim, so deep in the city. 

When you were still a young troll, you had sworn off the quadrants. There was so much else, such important work to concentrate upon--uniting the hemospectrum, reconciling the troll and human species--that you never once considered romance.

_Look, chief, you don't gotta fuss with it. Just separate out the guts and serve it up._

You look up at the pale ghosts of the stars, and you wonder how he is. You wonder if he's keeping himself well, if he's remembering to work when he sings, if the ocean is still kind. 

Four more months, you think. Four months, and a week for travel, and maybe this year he shall finally net a decent catch.


	2. Chapter 2

Tying the nets to the line, you always hum absent and tuneless. Crooning shitty like this wouldn't do much for anyone's image, least of all for a talented and sensitive soul like yourself, but it isn't as if most humans would ever appreciate you. Like, it's obvious they'd never get what an introspective and gentle poet you really are; with the humans on the boats you work, you get the drift they already think you're real simple. 

Three nets you got in one dive, and you're kicking back under the surface the minute they're all tied off. You don't tend to stick around to watch the humans haul up the catch. Despite the fact that you're the one working his fins to the nub, it's the owners of the fleet that get the most of the money. Even the humans loading the boats get a bigger take than you, but the more you net the more dollars you get. 

Troll-caught shellfish is the sustainable wave of the future, and look at you, just out here saving the ocean. Your moirail should be proud. 

Mainly, though, you're just impressed at how good you get paid. You're a prince among trolls when you get back home after season, you'd be able to keep like ten sets of quadrants happy for a sweep. That's not what matters to a great guy like you, though, and anyway it's not like anyone even knows what they want in a relationship. 

Swimming back down, you sing out to your fellow fishertroll. 

" _My Empress, Condescension,  
May you forever cull!_ " 

You see her luminescence brighten from deep on the seafloor, and her laugh echoes up around you as you head down to gather her catch, too. 

She's not really your Empress, of course. 

There's not really any Empress.

At least not right now, you remind yourself. An optimistic guy like yourself is hoping for a True Heiress, waiting for the eventual return of the troll that just has to be singing to Gl'bgolyb right now. 

It's a shame there's so many Tyrians robbed their proper hatchright just because they pupated out on this shit planet. You hope, whenever it is they return, the Imperial Fleet's gonna be taking it easy on sweet kids like Feferi. 

"Clam up, Cronus," she glubs as you finish up the verse, but by now you're close enough to see the bright grin of her needle-teeth. 

She's tied off four nets of her own, she' s so much quicker at this work. Even though this is only her third season--when you've been working a full ten--you aren't bothered. It's great hauling nets for her, she's never annoyed when you concentrate on your music. Naturally, you're a gentletroll and you always make sure she gets her cut. You only got a diamond to worry after, anyway, when she's got the full set. 

You shoo a nosing crustacean from the tangle of her hair. "Aw, but Princess. That's a classic," you remind her. 

"W-ell! Sing us one of your own, again!" she demands, and you smirk and start sorting your net. 

Back when you were small fry like her, you wouldn't have ever dreamed of glubbing that awful folky crap. Trend-setting musicians like yourself can't be fussing with any Alternian traditionalism: you wrote experimental fusion tunes to express your cosmopolitan artisan nature. 

Course, no one has any taste, so you never sold a tune. But you know what's hip, now, and it's Northeast-Alternian shanties. You pen one good song, and you'll be gill-deep in enough money that you won't even care that it's humans who'll be singing it. 

It's just that you have to be careful composing around them. They might get the idea to write it, too, and then there's goodbye to your sorely-deserved royalty check. 

"R-eely, Cronus! You're not a barnacle," Feferi demands, throwing a crab your way. "Fish or sing, don't just perch there!" 

You grab it and look it over, but of course she's tossed something you can't keep. "I'm a renaissance sort of troll, and I think you should know I can do both." 

"W-ell?" she prods. It's sort of flattering. 

"I don't know," you say. You can tell you're luminescing even brighter. These last two seasons, working with her, it's been the best. "I mean, I got so many tunes, and it's basically too much to choose from. You r-eely want to hear one?" 

"It makes the time pass, that's all," she says, and you'd clam right up if she didn't go on. "Glub me one about home." 

"I thought classic Alternian wasn't your bag." 

"No!" she says, puffing up. She's only ten sweeps, and it's so cute when she's relaxed enough to forget work and the troubles of her matesprit and just show it. "No, sing about your home, and your long-suffering moray-eel!" 

You laugh, because if you don't you'll just start blubbering.

You miss him a lot, you miss him all the time. You miss his grubloaf and his speeches and his moods; you miss his little rough hands on your horns and your cheek. It's another four months before you'll see him again, and you think again, maybe this'll be the year. Maybe now you'll have the scratch to stay home.

"Okay," you say. "Okay. Quadrant songs're always popular, yeah?" 

The slack line tied to your waist tugs once. Impatient humans. At least you can ignore the first warning. You start gathering Feferi's nets, and you start up your song.

" _Oh Terror, Vast Terrors, please sing your last call,_  
 _For I'm far from my moirail, for I'm leagues from my hive._  
 _Oh Terror, Vast Terrors, may the night finally fall_ \--" 

The line tugs twice, sharply. 

You sigh, and Feferi passes you her net. 

"Maybe a little moray-bid to shell," she says, sounding put-out, "but glub us another line."

You're shy singing too close to surface, but as you swim up, you still got time for her to hear another verse or two.

" _For the stars will be blot out, oh for short is his life._

_Horrors, dear Terrors, let me hear your Vast Glub,  
For the seas are a-storming, for my diamond is rust_ \--"

She gives a sad little glub at the half-truth, and you could kick yourself. You'd wrote it that way cause humans are ignorant about mutants and you just wanted to make a buck, you'd forgot all about her quadrants. 

You resist the tug of the line to croon her the last. 

" _Horrors, dear Terrors, cull me now with my love,  
For warm is his precious blood, for without him I'm lost._ "


End file.
